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Bloc could hold balance of power in a hung parliament: Hébert

Some NDP seats in Quebec could go to the Bloc, giving it important influence in the House.

Thomas Mulcair and the NDP have the most to lose in the coming election. There has not been a poll in weeks that has not suggested that some New Democrat seats will be lost in Quebec. (CHRISTINNE MUSCHI / REUTERS)

MONTREAL—It seems that there is always something new under the Quebec federal sun.

In the last election it was the NDP’s orange wave. In this one, it is an unprecedented four-way battle between the New Democrats, the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois.

Its unpredictable outcome could tip the balance next Monday and alter the dynamics of a possible minority parliament.

Here is a look at the unusually high stakes each party is playing for.

The NDP has the most to lose. Quebec accounts for more than half of its outgoing caucus. There has not been a poll in weeks that has not suggested that some New Democrat seats will be lost. It is no longer a given that the NDP will still finish first in Quebec next week.

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On that score, the province-wide polls that show the New Democrats hanging on to a lead are misleading. That because Quebec’s four-way battle really boils down to a series of two- or three-way regional contests.

As of the end of last week — according to pollster Jean-Marc Léger — the NDP had fallen to second place in all of them. It was behind the Liberals in the greater Montreal area, trailing the Conservatives in the larger Quebec City region and the Bloc Québécois in most other areas of the province.

The New Democrats could come out of Quebec next week with their second-best score ever in the province’s popular vote but with only a fraction of their current seats.

The Liberals have steadily improved their standing in Quebec over the past month. By all accounts, Justin Trudeau’s campaign has brought a lot of lapsed Liberals home. But support for the party remains heavily concentrated in the Montreal area.

In the rest of the province, the Liberals have a tall order on their hands on this last week for they are still running third behind the Bloc and the NDP among francophone voters.

Interestingly enough, the Liberal leader earned the loudest applause from the studio audience when he argued that Quebecers have more important issues to talk about than niqabs. (For those unfamiliar with the popular talk show, its on-site audience tends to be a very mainstream one.)

In a tight race nationally next week, Quebec could make the difference between victory and defeat for Trudeau.

For the Conservatives, a greater division of the opposition vote offers the best hope for gains in Quebec. Notwithstanding the niqab debate, there is no evidence of a province-wide thaw towards Stephen Harper.

But support for the Conservatives runs high in a handful of regions — in and around Quebec City — and in those areas they have a better chance of coming out on top as the result of a four-way split than in one-on-one combat with the NDP.

On paper, the Bloc Québécois has about the same level of support as it did when it finished with only four seats in 2 011. But the math of this campaign is different.

Absent a second orange wave the New Democrats are a shadow of the unbeatable force they were in the last election. For Gilles Duceppe, a more competitive Liberal party has been a blessing for Trudeau’s rise in support is at the expense of the New Democrats.

There will not next Monday be a return to a Bloc-dominated Quebec but the election could see the party get enough MPs elected to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

In the event of a narrow Conservative victory, the return of the Bloc to a position of some influence in the House of Commons could change the post-election dynamics.

When they talk of bringing down a minority Conservative government at the first opportunity, the Liberals and the New Democrats have in mind a scenario where the sum of the two of them would add up to a majority in the Commons.

If they had to factor the Bloc in the calculations involved in swiftly replacing a minority Harper government with the election runner-up, both Trudeau and Mulcair might be forced to go back to the drawing board.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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